Decoding Customer Decision Making.

Decoding Customer Decision Making

Phil Barden’s new book “Decoded” presents an analytical, evidence-based framework to access consumer decision making. It is a tangible, objective, science-based approach to marketing. It overcomes the typical hard-nosed business reaction to most marketing as “la la land.”

The book begins by noting that consumer decisions are driven both implicitly and explicitly. Implicit decision making dominates and is strongly driven by the historical frames of powerful brands. The consumer’s definition of value is reward minus pain — with pain being costs.

Consumers perceive products with blurred vision, but the vision is driven most importantly by consumer goals. The brand which owns the dominant explicit goal in the category is the market leader.

The book suggests that market strategies should be driven by the dominant consumer goal. The valuation is not “do we like it,” but rather “does it fit the goal.”

The book is dominated by many behavioral experiments which present powerful support of its conclusion. It is a springboard to considerably stronger marketing communication.